Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA held an end of the year Ekal Celebration dinner at the Burlington Marriott to honor their long term donors and volunteers who have supported Ekal for over a decade on Sunday, Dec 3 2023. The event was supported by the children of the Karna Rasiah family who dedicated the event to their “Nana and Nani” Pushpa and Arun Karna. 

After a welcome by Manisha Jain, a beautiful classical Carnatic-Hindustani jugalbandi was presented by highschoolers Rishab Tole (vocal) and Vineet Raman (Mridangam).  This was followed by a touching musical tribute to Pushpa and Arun Karna but their grandchildren, Yuvan , Lavanya and Moulika. The couple has been a compassionate community supporter for years and to see them honored by their grandchildren was very touching.  

Dr. Subra Dravida, the President of Ekal USA gave an overview of Ekal's work with a particular focus on Integrated Village Development. Subra Dravida and Ranjani Saigal, the executive director, for Ekal USA recognized some of the people in the audience including Mukesh and Priti Chatter, Chandresh Govani, Ram and Meetu Gupta, Puran and Kamlesh Dang, Ram Nehra, Sanjiv Nehra and Manpreet Kaur, Anu Chitrapu and Rama Ramakrishnan, Adi and Rutty Guzdar, Meena and Sundar Subramanyam, Janki Foundation, Myank and Manisha Jain, Sudha and Kumar Vishwanthan for their long standing support of Ekal . Subra and Anu Dravida  and Ranjani and Anil Saigal were also long time supporters of Ekal. 

The highlight of the evening was the presentation of the Ekal Ratna awards to Rishi and Niti Kapoor for their long term volunteering for Ekal and to Sudha Subbaraman for her leadership in composing the music for Ekal Gatha. The concept and lyrics were by Parveen Minocha and Manisha Jain.  Featured in the video  were Parveen Minocha, Manisha Jain, Anu Upneja, Srilakshmi Srinivasan, Shachi Badola and Harshini Magesh.

Entrepreneur Thomas Arul regaled the audience with a wonderful standup comedy. He also held an auction to raise funds for Ekal. He auctioned several art pieces and a stay at a nice resort provided by Manish and Ruchika Arora. Young Sid Vikram, a ten year old, stole the hearts of the audience with his impassioned plea for why Ekal’s work is important. Preanshi Chernalia, the winner of the Ekal Sa Re Ta Re enthralled the audience with her music. At the end, the audience met with Ekal beneficiaries in India via a zoom call. The audience were moved to hear how these women had been empowered by Ekal. One of them was being trained in Software QA at the Computer Literacy Lab. 

All aspects of the event were managed by volunteers. Tarun Bangalore and Sudharshan Thirumali provided sound engineering while Sarvanan and Sudar Meyyappan did the photo and video. Food was provided by Maya Grill. 

The audience thoroughly enjoyed the event and learned much about Ekal’s work.